After disappearing for a couple
of weeks, the hacker “Guccifer 2.0” returned late this afternoon to
provide a new headache for Democrats.

In a post to his WordPress blog,
the vandal–who previously provided nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee
e-mails to Wikileaks–uploaded an Excel file that includes the cell phone
numbers and private e-mail addresses of nearly every Democratic member of the
House of Representatives.

The Excel file also includes
similar contact information for hundreds of congressional staff members (chiefs
of staff, press secretaries, legislative directors, schedulers) and campaign
personnel.

Along with the Excel file, “Guccifer 2.0” also uploaded
documents that included the account names and passwords for an assortment of
subscription services used by the DCCC, from Lexis-Nexis to Glenn Beck’s web site (password: nutbag).[See the other Glenn Beck article, below.Bob]

Data thieves used a massive
“botnet” against professional networking site LinkedIn and stole member’s
personal information, a new lawsuit reveals.

The Mountain View firm filed the
federal suit this week in an attempt to uncover the perpetrators.

“LinkedIn members populate their
profiles with a wide range of information concerning their professional lives,
including summaries (narratives about themselves), job histories, skills,
interests, educational background, professional awards, photographs and other
information,” said the company’s complaint, filed in Northern California U.S.
District Court.

“This was not an attack or data breach where confidential
data was stolen,” LinkedIn’s legal team said in a statement. “This suit
is about unknown entities using automated systems to scrape and copy data that
members have made available on LinkedIn, violating the law and our Terms of
Service.”

In November 2012 the Governor claimed they were in
compliance with security standards but the hack could not have been
prevented.Looks like they are trying to
prevent hacks but still don’t know much about what happened?

Four years after South Carolina’s
tax agency suffered the worst data breach in state history, 5 million attempts are made each week to
gain unauthorized access to state government computers, which hold vast amounts
of personal data belonging to taxpayers, employees and members of the public.

[…]

Four years later, the state has
made a myriad of cyber security improvements but the culprits of the DOR breach
have not been captured.

“It is still a very active and
open investigation,” Thom Berry, a spokesman for the State Law Enforcement
Division, told The News. “We
recently discussed the matter with our federal partners and they assured us
they too have a very open and active investigation on the matter.”

Before any employee has access to a DOR computer system,
Reames said, they have to go through nationally-accredited security training, including
testing on phishing, privacy issues and data classification. Existing employees have to be re-certified
each year . There also are mock security drills, penetration testing and
phishing email tests.

The agency also hired a chief information security officer
who reports directly to the agency’s director. An internal
auditor also now reports to the director.[That’s rather strange.Bob]

In June, the Government
Accountability Office released a report criticizing
the FBI’s facial recognition programs as privacy invasive, untested, and
secretive. The GAO report got a decent
amount of coverage, particularly in the independent and tech press. Included
in the report was a map showing which states had agreements with the FBI’s FACE
Unit to share mugshots and drivers license images for facial recognition scans,
and which states were “under negotiations” with the FBI to establish such
agreements. Massachusetts was listed among the latter states (see below). That was the first I’d ever heard of the
Massachusetts RMV engaging in negotiations to share drivers license images with
the FBI. Alarmed, I filed a public
records request with
the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to learn more about these
negotiations.

Then something
bizarre happened.

On August 3 2016,
the GAO published a
modified version of its report. The only
thing in the report that changed was Figure 4, the map revealing that states
including Massachusetts were involved in negotiations with the FBI, presumably
to allow the Bureau to begin performing facial recognition searches of state
RMV records. The map initially stated
that 18 states, including Massachusetts, were involved in these negotiations. The “corrected” map (see below) says there are
“no negotiations underway” in these 18 states—a 180 degree reversal.

“The tremendous impact that digital services have had on governments
and society has been the subject of extensive research that has documented the
rapid, extensive adoption of public-sector digital services around the globe. We believe that the coming data revolution
will be even more deeply transformational and that data enablement will produce
a radical shift in the public sector’s quality of service, empowering
governments to deliver better constituent service, better policy outcomes, and
more-productive operations.”

Glenn Beck must disclose the names of confidential sources
he used while reporting that a Saudi Arabian student was involved in the Boston
Marathon bombing, a federal judge ruled in a case being closely watched by
First Amendment activists and news organizations.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Patti Saris came Tuesday
in a defamation lawsuit filed by Abdulrahman Alharbi, who was injured in the
2013 deadly bombing.

Saris said the conservative commentator must disclose the
identities of at least two U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees who
allegedly gave Beck’s associates information supporting Beck’s claim that
Alharbi was the attack’s “money man.”

The judge acknowledged that her decision could raise First
Amendment concerns, but she said documents she ordered did not show that
Alharbi funded the attack.

…Saris agreed
with Alharbi’s contention that “the only way to verify or confirm what the
confidential sources told the defendants would be to speak with the sources
themselves.” She noted that the
deposition testimony of Beck’s associates “is vague and often contradictory.”

Alharbi therefore “has a strong need for the sources’
identities to meet his burden of demonstrating that the defendants did not act
with the proper standard of care in their reporting,” Saris wrote.

General Motors in recent weeks told Lyft it was interested
in acquiring the company, according to a person briefed on the situation. After soliciting other potential strategic
acquirers, Lyft rebuffed GM’s approach and decided to raise a new funding round
instead, according to two people.

GM mentioned a price it was willing to pay but that amount
couldn’t be learned, and it’s unclear who initiated the conversation. GM paid $500 million for a 9% stake in Lyft at
the start of the year, valuing the company at $5.5 billion. GM’s president sits on Lyft’s board of
directors. The bid signals GM’s seriousness about increasing its investment in
ride-sharing, as Lyft would likely require
billions of dollars in further investment.Lyft trails Uber by a wide margin overall in
terms of market share in the U.S.

…“Ugandan
parliament orders Bridge Academy schools closed,” according to Education
International. “In a sweeping move,
the for-profit school chain has been told to lock its doors after parliament
demanded it halt operations in response to its failure to meet educational and
infrastructure standards.” The company –
funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Pearson, Learn Capital, and others –
says it will remain open.

…“The University
of Melbourne has moved to allay privacy concerns amid revelations it
is tracking students through their wi-fi usage,” says
The World Today. “The university
said the practice, which looked at where people were moving around campus,
helped institutions improve retention rates and the experience of students.”

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About Me

I live in Centennial Colorado. (I'm not actually 100 years old., but I hope to be some day.) I'm an independant computer consultant, specializing in solving problems that traditional IT personnel tend to have difficulty with... That includes everything from inventorying hardware & software, to converting systems & data, to training end-users. I particularly enjoy taking on projects that IT has attempted several times before with no success. I also teach at two local Universities: everything from Introduction to Microcomputers through Business Continuity and Security Management. My background includes IT Audit, Computer Security, and a variety of unique IT projects.